Pakistani prisoner dies in 'revenge attack'

Pakistan foreign ministry demands India investigate death of Sanaullah Ranjay who was beaten by fellow inmate

Indian police guard an ambulance carrying the body of Pakistani prisoner Sanaullah Ranjay as it heads to the airport to transport his remains back to Pakistan. Photograph: Shammi Mehra/AFP/Getty Images

A Pakistani prisoner serving a life sentence in India died on Thursday from a beating that took place a day after a convicted Indian spy was killed inside a Pakistani prison. The rival nations have accused each other of not doing enough to protect prisoners.

Pakistani diplomat Sultan Hasan said the inmate, Sanaullah Ranjay, died in a hospital in northern India after slipping into a coma. He had been beaten up by a fellow inmate last Friday in the prison in Jammu, in Indian-ruled Kashmir.

Ranjay was jailed in 1999 and was sentenced to life in prison in 2009 for being a Pakistani militant operating in Indian Kashmir. The charges against him included murder and waging war against India.

On 2 May, an Indian man found guilty of spying in Pakistan died days after an attack by fellow inmates at a Lahore prison.

Indian and Pakistan have fought each other in three major wars, two of them over Kashmir, since gaining independence from Britain in 1947.

Ranjay's body was flown by a special Pakistani plane to the city of Sialkot for burial, Pakistan state TV reported.

A Pakistan foreign ministry statement said the brutal manner in which Ranjay was attacked in the jail was most unfortunate. It demanded that India investigate and bring the perpetrators to justice. The ministry accepted an offer from India for a meeting to come up with ways to avoid similar attacks in the future.

Omar Abdullah, top elected official of the Indian portion of Kashmir, offered his apology to his family and expressed his sympathies for their loss.

Syed Ali Geelani, a top Kashmiri separatist leader, said that the assault on Ranjay was a planned revenge attack and called for peaceful protests and special prayers on Friday. Srinagar is the summer capital and main city of the Indian portion of Kashmir.

Ranjay had been brought by air ambulance from Jammu to a bigger hospital in Chandigarh in the nearby state of Punjab.

A medical bulletin said Thursday that "he had multiple organ failure due to severe head injury." His condition had become extremely critical as he also developed hypothermia.

There are 535 Indian prisoners in Pakistani jails and 272 Pakistani prisoners in Indian jails, according to India's External Affairs Ministry.